Jane Cable

'The past is never dead...'

The Setting

Given the inspiration for the book there was never any doubt that it had to be set in

Hampshire. It is a part of the world I know very well, having lived on the county’s

border with Sussex for twenty years.

The proximity – and the fact I spend much of my working life around Southampton’s

north-eastern fringes – has made the locations easy to research. I have visited the

woods at Curbridge at all times of the year and have watched the tree itself grow and

change over the years it has taken me to complete the book. It is a place everyone can

visit; park next to the Horse & Jockey pub in Curbridge and take the path into the

National Trust wood. Follow the left fork, higher up the bank than the river, and you

can’t miss the tree.

This youtube video takes you on a virtual walk in the faerie tree woods (used by kind

permission of Duncan Toms)

I needed to give Izzie a home that was handy for Winchester but not actually in it. In

the end I chose the small town of Bishop’s Waltham, although I have to admit I made

up the road where she lives. Readers will recognise other local landmarks though and

I can thoroughly recommend Josie’s in the High Street for coffee and amazing cakes

and snacks.

Part of the story takes place in Cornwall, on the north coast around Newquay. It is an area of the country I am coming to know better and better as we are lucky enough to have a holiday home in Porthtowan, just a little further west. It was stretching my own memory to revisit Newquay in the 1980s (I’d only been there once in 1982) but that’s where the internet is invaluable and old pictures help.